If you’re not being persecuted then maybe you’re not shaking enough cages?

True / False? That statement might cause some contention between people!

For the time being let’s head back into life inside a container, Helen says during the day it was so hot inside the container you could cook an egg... during the night so cold that people often suffered hypothermia... the containers were so crowded you couldn’t all lie down to sleep... you were forced to go to the toilet inside the container... guards would bring you water to drink but often fill it with spices so that it would leave you feeling dehydrated and more often than not with diarrhea and on top of all that were the beatings... the what, I said???

You see beatings, interrogation and torture were a regular part of life in prison, being stripped naked and made to kneel on sharp rocks whilst holding extremely heavy stones for hours at a time, for a period of 1 month Helen said she was not allowed to sleep and every time she did fall asleep the guards would run their batons down the outside of the metal containers to keep them awake, Helen was often refused food for prolonged periods of time (I mean she had the audacity to say to me at one stage, do you fast? To which I replied I have done a few but not many, Helen said, ‘as Christians we need to fast more! Going without food for a week is easy...’ ummm excuse me, did you say a week???  Are you serious?!?!?!)

Helen then proceeded to say to me, ‘but the worst beating of all nearly killed me...’

The guards were sick of Helen singing, praying and teaching others about Jesus so they grabbed her  and dragged her outside of the container, they placed her in clear view of the other containers which were laid out in a ‘U’ shape, they made her kneel in the middle of the yard so that the other people in the containers could see, the guard asked her, ‘where is the Bible?’ and she replied ‘I don’t have one’ and they asked her again, ‘where is the Bible’ and she said ‘I don’t have one’ and then they said ‘is it in your head?’ and she replied ‘yes!’ and they said ‘well we are going to have to beat it out of you!’ The guards began to beat her relentlessly with a wooden baton all over her body, head, arms, legs, stomach half way through the beating she said to the guard hitting her:

‘I don’t hate you for what you are doing as I know you’re just carrying out an order but you need to know I am carrying out an order too and that’s not to renounce Jesus – you may carry on.’

Hold on???? Here is a lady the same age as me being beaten to a pulp because of her love for Jesus, forgiving the attacker and proclaiming the Gospel to him, at this point in time Helen looks at me and says, ‘like driving a nail into wood every hit drew me closer to God’.

Helen said after the beating they took her back to the container and she believed she was about to die, she called the guard and said please take off my shackles as I don’t want to die in chains, as soon as they took off the chains she passed out and the guards began dragging her to the medical centre but on the way there she woke up. The guards said, ‘you’re not going to die and they dragged her back to the container, threw her in and closed the door’ – she remembers laying on the floor and beginning to sing songs of praise and worship to God.

Sitting there in absolute silence for what felt like minutes I remember getting those nervous hot flushes you get when you feel like you’ve been caught but your parents haven’t yelled at you yet... I felt that once again my safe attitude on faith was anything but Biblical and quite frankly it must be heart breaking to God... I mean I’ve often heard the church in Australia and America referred to as the free church, but is there such thing as a free church in the Bible? The theme of persecution runs throughout the Bible, Old Testament and New, is there really meant to be a free church?

Can it be true, if you’re not being persecuted maybe you’re not shaking enough cages?

Don’t get me wrong persecution doesn’t have to look like life in Eritrea and I firmly believe persecution in Australia exists it’s just dressed differently. But are there challenges in your life and if so in the face of those challenges are you standing up for Jesus?

For more information about Open Doors and My Heart Bleeds or to book a speaker for you event please follow us on facebook or shoot us an email at mhb@od.orgwe hope you enjoy this series and that it inspires you to chase God harder, speak louder and declare your love for Him.